Through the Window
by ncc2011
Summary: When Andy comes home one weekend from college, he hears a horrible crash.  It involves his old cowboy doll.  What happened and how will this get resolved?


Every college student needs a break from campus every so often. That usually means a trip home for the weekend. Andy needed just one of those. He hadn't been home in a month, so he felt the time was right.

Andy packed a bag and left his campus after getting out of his Friday morning class. When he got home, his mother was of course happy to see him and started hammering him with questions about everything that was going on in his life away from her and Molly. Like any male college student, Andy humored her and answered just about everything she had to ask. After that, the rest of that day was relatively quiet.

Andy woke at the crack of noon the next day. After eating breakfast and freshening up, he went downstairs to the family room and opened up his laptop so he could work on an assignment that was due on Monday. He was pretty good about staying on top of his schoolwork. He hated the idea of typing out a 1,000-word assignment the night before it was due since it would have created too much stress and he would have been deprived of sleep, which was generally a problem for college students anyway.

Mom and Molly had gone out shopping, so Andy was home by himself. There was apparently a big clothing sale going on at one of the stores at the mall and only for one day. Like most guys with no fashion sense, Andy wanted nothing to do with it.

_What's the big fuss over those things anyway?_ Andy had thought to himself. _They're just clothes. I know I'm probably being ignorant since I hate shopping for them anyway, but why the hell do women go nuts over things they're just going to replace almost as soon as they buy them? I've had a lot of my clothes since high school and I get by with them just fine._

All annoyance aside, Andy was glad to have peace and quiet in the house so he could do his homework. The assignment itself was confusing enough and he didn't need any distractions. Buster had stopped being a loud barker long ago, which added to the tranquility. All that peace was about to be disturbed however.

Andy's eyes were fixated toward his screen as he pondered his next move. Just then, it happened.

"Hey Davis!" shouted a voice from outside.

CRASH!

An object was thrown through the window. The noise startled Andy so much that his laptop fell from his lap and onto the floor. Fortunately, it wasn't damaged.

"Holy fuck!" Andy shouted. "What the fuck was that?"

Not caring what the object was, Andy ran toward the front door and out to try and catch a glimpse at who had committed such a deed. Unfortunately, all he saw was a red sedan speeding down the street to his left. Andy ran closer to the road, hoping to get the license plate before the sedan got too far out of sight, but he just missed it.

Still in shock, Andy went back into the house. Before calling the police, he decided to take a look at just what it was that had broken his window. It was a brick, but then, Andy was shocked to see what was tied to it.

"Woody?" observed Andy. "What the fuck happened to you?"

It wasn't like Andy to drop so many F-bombs in such a short period of time, but something ugly had just happened. He untied his former cowboy doll and saw a note had also been tied to the brick. He unfolded it and read what was written.

_Davis_

_I don't know how this ended up in a front yard around the corner from your house, but I took the liberty of returning it. Don't you need it to play your lovely cowboy games? I know you stopped bringing it to school long ago, but you can't suppress your Western stage forever, right? Ha ha. Have fun with it, pussy. I know you're grateful for this._

No name was signed, but when he was finished, Andy was seething with anger. What kind of immature dick would do something like this? Whoever it was must have flunked out of junior high because the note sure made it seem like he never moved on from it or even bothered to polish his writing skills.

Without anymore hesitation, Andy stormed over to the phone and dialed 911. As he waited for the dispatcher to answer, he picked up Woody and placed him on the counter.

"Don't worry," said Andy. "We're going to get to the bottom of this."

He pulled his string both for old time's sake and to see if he would say anything appropriate for the situation.

"_Somebody's poisoned the waterhole!_" said Woody's voice box.

"You can say that again," responded Andy.

"911, what is your emergency?" answered the dispatcher.

"Hi, I'd like to report criminal damage to property," said Andy. "Someone threw a brick through my window."

"I see," said the dispatcher. "When did this happen?"

"Just a few minutes ago," said Andy. "There was a cowboy doll tied to it that I'm pretty sure was stolen from a house nearby."

"Why do you suspect that?" asked the dispatcher.

"I know the family from where this doll came from," said Andy. "Plus, I gave it to the little girl there months ago."

The dispatcher asked Andy who and where he was and Andy responded appropriately. When asked if he saw the suspect, Andy told of the red sedan he saw.

"We'll send someone right over," said the dispatcher. "Just hold tight."

"Thanks very much," said Andy just before he hung up.

As Andy went out onto the porch to wait for the police, Woody sprung to life. He was scared just as much as his former owner was. He looked around to see that nothing about the house had really changed since he was donated to Bonnie all those months ago. Nothing that is except for the freshly broken window at the front of the room.

Buster slowly trudged into the room to see what was going on. Woody saw him and was glad to see the only living being in the Davis household that knew toys were alive. Of course, since Buster couldn't talk, it was never a problem.

"Hey boy," whispered Woody. "Nice to see that you're still breathing."

A few minutes later, two cops arrived: one to question Andy and the other to investigate the crime scene. When everyone came back into the house, Woody went limp. Andy relayed everything he knew to the interrogating cop, who asked him additional questions such as if something like this had ever happened before and if he recognized the handwriting in which the note was written. To both of those particular questions, Andy said no.

The detective at the scene didn't have the tools necessary to reveal the fingerprints on the brick right there, so he decided to take it back to the station for some tests. As for Woody, Andy decided that the right thing to do would be to return him to Bonnie immediately. The other cop on the scene told Andy he would give him a ride over to make sure the little girl got her cowboy back. Still, neither of them could figure out how Woody had been taken in the first place.

When they reached the Andersons, nobody was in the front yard, so they walked to the door and rang the bell. There was no answer, which meant no one was home. As they walked back toward the squad car and pondered what to do next, somebody pulled into the driveway.

It was none other than Bonnie and her mother and clearly, both were surprised to see Andy and a policeman halfway up their front walkway.

"Is there a problem, officer?" asked Mrs. Anderson.

"Yes there is," said Andy before the cop could respond. "Bonnie, I have someone here for you."

He held out Woody and Bonnie was shocked to see him in Andy's hand.

"How did you get him?" asked Bonnie. "He never left the house!"

Andy told her and her mother what happened and just then, Mrs. Anderson came to a realization. She revealed that Bonnie had been playing with Woody out in the front yard and had momentarily put him down when she came running out of the house and told Bonnie to quickly get in the car so she could get to the beauty parlor appointment she was already late for. That meant Woody was left all alone in the yard. The perpetrator must have come and snatched him up not long after.

Mrs. Anderson felt bad about the whole thing, but her worries were brushed aside when Woody's old owner handed him back to his new owner. At least Bonnie never got a chance to worry about him. She would have been so upset if she knew he was gone.

"We'll call you if we find anything out," said the cop. "This house is a crime scene, so I think you have the right to know what happened."

"Thank you very much," said Mrs. Anderson. "And thank you for bringing Woody back."

"My pleasure," said Andy. "I know whoever did this was only trying to give me my toy back, but for now, his rightful owner lives here."

The cop took Andy back to the squad car to take him back home, but not before Bonnie gave Woody a pull of his string.

"_Yee-ha! Giddy up, partner! We've got to get this wagon train a-movin'._"

"Indeed," said Andy to himself.

Molly and Andy's mom got home about an hour after the cops had left and were shocked to see a broken window at the front of the house. Andy took them in and explained everything. Just as he was finishing up, the phone rang and the caller ID said it was the police department. Andy answered and listened to what the cop on the other end had to say.

The cop told Andy that the fingerprints on the brick matched that of a previous record holder named Dylan Michaels. Andy immediately knew who they were talking about. Dylan had been seen as nothing but trouble since Andy first met him at school not long after he moved. Andy hadn't seen him since he moved out of the district himself after seventh grade, but apparently, the kid still had issues if he had already been arrested before.

The cop also said that Dylan had just been apprehended after being pulled over for running a stop sign and then refusing to cooperate. When word came across the radio that he had also been the one who broke the Davis' window, it became clear that more charges would be pressed against him. He was currently being held on $500 bail, but unfortunately for him, his mother was out of town until the next day and his girlfriend refused to come down to the station after she had bailed him out once before. Dylan would have a full night behind bars to think about his most recent crimes and to reflect on his relationship with a girl that had just about evaporated.

Andy's mother asked to speak to the cop herself so she could get full details from an authority figure, so Andy passed the phone to her. For the rest of his visit home, Andy did his best to get his mind off the whole thing, but had little success. At least he would have an exciting story to tell his roommate and the rest of his college friends when he got back. Once he told the story, he would have the perfect way to end it.

_I wonder if a story like this would have been perfect for a "Woody's Roundup" episode,_ he thought.


End file.
